Diary Of An Old Soul

Too eager I must not be to understand.
How should the work the Master goes about
Fit the vague sketch my compasses have planned?
I am his house-for him to go in and out.
He builds me now-and if I cannot see
At anytime what he is doing with me,
'Tis that he makes the house for me too grand.

The house is not for me-it is for him.
His royal thoughts require many a stair,
Many a tower, many an outlook fair,
Of which I have no thought, and need no care.
Where I am most perplexed, it may be there
Thou mak'st a secret chamber, holy-dim,
Where thou wilt come to help my deepest prayer.

I cannot tell why this day I am ill;
But I am well because it is thy will-
Which is to make me pure and right like thee.
Not yet I need escape-'tis bearable
Because thou knowest. And when harder things
Shall rise and gather, and overshadow me,
I shall have comfort in thy strengthenings.
-George MacDonald

June 29th

Last month my two sisters and I held a music recital for our piano, guitar and bass students. Between the three of us we have 49 students who come through our home each week and I must admit that at times I wonder why I'm sitting there listening to kids plunck out little songs and practice scales... then we have a recital and I'm reminded what a gift it is to teach!! God has truly blessed me. I get to sit with so many special young people each week that challenge me with questions I never asked and that look at music and life in ways that are so unique. Sometimes I'm amazed that I get paid to learn from these great students!

"The Hallway"

“People who bore one another should meet seldom;





people who interest one another, often.”
C. S. Lewis






This past week marks one year since I joined a "book club".

“You will not find the warrior, the poet, the philosopher or the Christian by staring in his eyes as if he were your mistress: better fight beside him, read with him, argue with him, pray with him.”

–C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves - Friendship.

Here are some photos from a great book club that I’ve had the pleasure of being a part of this past year!!

I am so thankful that God in His mercy has brought me to this season!
This group now called "The Hallway" is a special highlight of my week! This year we have grown from 6 to about 13 members. God is teaching me how to trust Him and to trust others... which has been amazing and scary! Amazing, because you don't need to protect yourself... scary, because you can't protect yourself, you are vulnerable... harder than that though, others are vulnerable and you can hurt them! Scripture teaches us that "love always trusts" so in order to love others we must cease to worry about self and serve our Father and our brothers and sisters. Through that trust we then get to enjoy the gifts that our Heavenly Father is giving us in Himself and in others! God has used this gathering of friends to push, to pull, to stretch, to humble and to pick me up. I am learning that some things you fear the most can turn out to be the most freeing! So in the freedom of Love Himself... may we continue to grow!

Tag / Seven

Nick tagged me, so now I'm called on to share seven things about myself... some you may know and some maybe not, so here it goes.

1. I am left handed, but I play guitar right handed.
2. I was born in 1983, but I was 3 weeks late so I was actually due in 1982.
3. I am naturally blond though my roots are dark. :)
4. I want to see the Northern Lights before I die.
5. I have visited about 45 of the 50 states of the USA. I love traveling both here and abroad!!
6. I am very dyslexic. I often mix up my M's and P's...why does everyone reject me when I write "I miss you"?!
7. I actually like cleaning! When I was a kid I liked cleaning toilets... which is weird, so thankfully I've grown out of that, but I really enjoy putting a good CD on and organizing my closet and room! Am I crazy??

Now Keith and Ryan, you're it!

She Rocks!!

If you haven't heard of
KT Tunstall you should check her out! I got her CD "Eye to the Telescope" and have been really enjoying it; then today I watched some of her music videos and she is a real muscian!!!...Two videos to see are "Black Horse & The Cherry Tree LIVE" and "Under The Weather".
Anyway, let me know your thoughts.

"Scotland Feet"

What constitutes "pretty feet"?....
What constitutes a "pretty big head"?...:)
Is it a sign of ones head being pretty big when he or she sits around admiring and comparing his or her own feet??
Could it mean you have to much time on your hands.?.?...

Or maybe another perspective would be... taking a load off while having a ton of fun on vacation! :)

Creeping Christians

We are and remain such creeping Christians, because we look at ourselves and not at Christ; because we gaze at the marks of our own soiled feet, and the trail of our own defiled garments….Each, putting his foot in the footprint of the Master, and so defacing it, turns to examine how far his neighbor’s footprint corresponds with that which he still calls the Master’s, although it is but his own. Or, having committed a petty fault, I mean a fault such as only a petty creature could commit, we mourn over the defilement to ourselves, and the shame of it before our friends, children, or servants, instead of hastening to make the due confession and amends to our fellow, and then, forgetting our own paltry self with its well-earned disgrace, lift up our eyes to the glory which alone will quicken the true man in us, and kill the peddling creature we so wrongly call our self.
by- George MacDonald- UNSPOKEN SERMONS, First Series, The Eloi

A “Creeping Christian”, this I am! Oh, that I would be humbled before God, and man…but sadly the humbling I fear the most is that which is before my friends…I would hope to be humbled before God, but have my friends not know...Christ forgive me!?!…as I still think of myself and fear what a person might think rather than what God thinks. So, when I am humbled, may I look to Christ rather than once again being “shocked” by my sin.

A Beautiful Sunrise

There are questions of what should be today? Where should I be tomorrow? Who is coming? Who is leaving? ...If things are good today, then why do I fret about tomorrow? Do I think He won't hold that too. If the evening comes before the day (as I am daily given a reminder by the sunrise after a dark night), ...........why then do I not hope?

"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
What does the worker gain for his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men.
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end."
-Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

"My heart was saying, 'Lord, take away this longing, or give me that for which I long.' The Lord was answering, 'I must teach you to long for something better.'
'...He fed you on manna which neither you nor your fathers had known before, to teach you that man cannot live on bread alone but lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.'
God knew that giving me Jim when I wanted him would not provide the far more important training I needed for things to come. It was in learning to eat the Living Bread, sufficient always for one day at a time (not in advance for the five years I feared) that I was taught and disciplined and prepared for later things."
-by Elisabeth Elliot in Passion & Purity

If everything is lost, thanks be to God
If I must see it go, watch it go,
Watch if fade away, die
Thanks be to God that He is all I have
And if I have Him not, I have nothing at all
Nothing at all, only a farewell to the wind
Farewell to the grey sky
Goodbye, God be with you evening October sky.
If all is lost, thanks be to God,
for He is He, and I, I am only I.
-by Julian, friend of the Vanauken's from the book "A Severe Mercy".

things i never knew i always wanted

Welcome to my Blog!
Finally I'm here. I was really beginning to wonder if I would EVER have my own Blog; for the simple reason..."with a Blog, comes many important decisions"! You should have read that with the sound of an echo and the image of a parent standing above their child, telling them of important responsibilities they must face...but that is only how I felt...what was really happening, was my sister sitting at the computer saying, "so what do you want your password to be?" and "now what about your display name, you know the name you want to be at the bottom of your post"...AH!!! stop right there! too many questions...just make the background black while I get us some tea!

So, please bear with me...I'm new at this. :)